Lewis Black's Life Advice for Millennials

Comedian Lewis Black is 65, but his audience skews much younger. This creates some unusual challenges for the Daily Show commentator—like finding a way to do a live comedy special without isolating fans closer to his own age. "I can’t put it on Yahoo, because 40 percent of my audience isn’t going to watch it on their computer. And HBO, those fucks, wouldn’t do it," he tells us. Fortunately, Black reached a solution; his stand-up special, Old Yeller,will air August 24 on Pay Per View and Video on Demand, "so at least, they have all the options." Given his cross-generational appeal, we asked the irascible comic to offer some advice to young people. He agreed, though it wasn’t his subject of choice. "I thought GQ was going to call me up and ask me about my wardrobe, because it’s getting better every day," Black chuckled. "But they don’t pay attention to my clothes, those fuckers."

"One of the most important things, especially when you’re leaving school, is to realize you’re going to be dealing with a lot of idiots. And a lot of those idiots are in charge of things, so if you’re in an interview and you really want to tell the person off, don’t do it. When people ask me, &#x2018;Gee, why did it take you so long to have a career?’ it’s because I really thought that my criticism mattered to these people. It never crossed my mind that these people maintain their jobs. You’re going to see them again. And not only are you going to see them again, but the next time, they’re going to be in an even higher position they don’t deserve."

"Remember: you’re living through a major shift. We’ve gone from whatever we were as a society, to whatever the fuck words they’re using to describe it: a digital society. We’re in the middle of that. In the future, a lot of this stuff will be integrated. Which it’s not right now, because this is chaos."

"It’s a big thing now: A lot of people want to be assistants to celebrities. If you’re pursuing that, you’re an idiot. You’re a moron. The shortest distance between two points is not a celebrity, or being next to a celebrity. You want to do what it is that YOU want to do."

"The one thing that I know is key to living a somewhat satisfactory life: you really have to pursue what it is that you want to do. Whatever it is. And realize that, chances are, if you do what you want to do, there is hardly any income. In most instances, initially, there’s not. You have to deal with that. And what you’re going to find is, if you’re actually doing what it is you want to do, income really isn’t as important as people say it is. I was broke for a long, long time, and the only thing that bothered me about being broke was that I occasionally had to borrow money. The rest of the time, I was very happy doing what I was doing.

And at the end of the day, as I said in my commencement speech at UCSD: If there is a God, he really doesn’t care about what’s written on your paycheck."

"No matter what, your parents are going to worry about you. I had a tour bus and my mother still thought I was broke. Remember: It’s your life, not theirs. Just because your parents sent you to college doesn’t mean they bought the rest of your life."

"Going into theater is really stupid. Outside of the church, jazz poetry, short stories—you might as well say, "Hey, I’m taking a vow of poverty." I mean, the play I wrote [One Slight Hitch] is 35 years old, you know? I mean, it took me 35 years to get this play published. It’s crazy. But I never gave a shit. I worked for pennies, but I was having so much fun, I was enjoying so much what I was doing, and learning, that the rest of it was meaningless."

"Don’t pay attention to opinions; look for facts. It’s an impossible time to keep track of facts, because there are so few places you can find them. We have a lot of information; we don’t have a lot of facts. The Democrats tell you one thing, the Republicans tell you another, and yet nobody tells you what the truth is. Like the other day, I read this quote: If you paid 68 cents more for a Big Mac, then everyone at McDonalds could earn 10 or 12 dollars an hour. Now, I don’t know if that’s true! But it reads well."

"The better off the group is, the better off you are. And there are going to be bloodsuckers: the ones who take advantage by being in the group, and there are the ones who take advantage by being in charge. People act as if there’s some sort of difference between the poor sonofabitch who’s taking advantage of the crumbs, and the guy who’s taking advantage of the Gucci. This country was never based on survival of the fittest. Nowhere in the goddamn Constitution did they say that. And if you do believe in the group, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be a conservative."

"There’s a fine line between humor and being obnoxious. You cross that line when it hurts a large, large group of people. If you yell about one woman, you’re not a misogynist. If I yell about Michelle Bachman, that doesn’t make me a misogynist. If I compare all women to Michelle Bachman, then I’m a misogynist."

"Multitasking is a myth, and I don’t say that because I’m older and can’t multitask. It’s because I’m older and I’m wise enough to know that the human brain has not developed itself to that point. We have not been sitting in front of the computer and phone that long, to be able to do two things simultaneously. It’s a bunch of crap. Do what you gotta do, and then do the next thing. When you’re looking at your computer and you’re on the phone, you’re not doing either of them. And the most heinous example of that is when you’re texting and driving. If you could really multitask, you could fucking do both of those, asshole. You’re supposed to live in the moment. Well, if you’re on your computer and on your phone, which fucking moment are you in?"

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